8: Who cares about the ants that are crushed to death under the soles of shoes?

"Who is the fool that can't see?"

"Can't you see the Ye Family is handling matters? If you don't want to die, get lost!"

Ye Li roared without turning his head, swinging his right palm backward, which was wrapped in fierce winds that tore through the air.

His four-stage cultivation fully erupted, the edge of his palm even flashing with blood-red Evil Qi—this was the Ye Family's secret 'Heart-Shattering Palm,' which had once instantly shattered the heart meridian of a Cultivator of the same realm on the spot.

However—

"Crack!"

Ye Li's sneer instantly froze on his face.

He heard the crisp sound of his bones beginning to shatter segment by segment, starting from his fingertips.

The cracking sound did not stop; like firecrackers, it traveled up his arm. The flesh and bones of his entire right arm were instantly ground into powder by some terrifying force.

Ye Li didn't even have time to scream before a hand covered in dark iron scales clamped down on his throat, lifting his two-hundred-pound body like a baby chick.

His legs instinctively thrashed in the air, and his left hand frantically clawed at the iron-vice grip.

Yet the palm that was usually strong enough to split stone tablets and crack rocks felt like a tickle now, failing to leave even a scratch on the opponent's scales.

The Ye Family Cultivators were about to rush forward to help when the entire world suddenly sank.

"Boom—"

Invisible pressure crashed down like the collapse of the sky, instantly blasting countless fragments from the bluestones of the long street.

The members of the Ye Family, along with the surrounding Cultivators who were watching, were struck as if by lightning, their bodies uncontrollably slamming into the ground.

Blood mist erupted from their knees, and their faces scraped bloody trails across the stone slabs.

The entire market square fell silent, leaving only the continuous 'crack' of joints breaking.

"P-Please spare me, sir!" Ye Li realized something was wrong and began begging for mercy. His face was purple and bloated from being choked, yet he still desperately squeezed out a plea, "It is this lowly one who failed to recognize Mount Tai..."

He no longer possessed his earlier arrogance, only fear and desperation.

The plea ended, but the guard's expression remained icy.

He merely glanced toward Qin Wangchuan—

The five-year-old child was looking elsewhere, not even sparing him a side glance.

Seeing this, the guard immediately tightened his five fingers.

"Snap!"

Ye Li's neck was brutally crushed, and he died in agony.

Blood gushed out of his seven orifices, and under the overwhelming pressure, it strangely suspended in mid-air, turning into a sky full of blood beads.

In the last moment before his consciousness dissipated, he was still thinking: Is this an assassination targeting me? Or an attack targeting the Ye Family?

But the next second, Ye Li's scattered pupils suddenly contracted violently.

In his blurring vision, a five-year-old child stood indifferently in front of the small blind girl, with another black-armored guard standing respectfully behind him.

'So... that's it...'

Only then did he understand—this peerless expert who had casually crushed him was merely an attendant of this Young Master.

This wasn't a vendetta, nor was it an attack.

It was simply that a powerful being had accidentally stepped on an ant that happened to be shouting as he passed by.

"W-Who exactly are you?!" The Ye Family guard kneeling on the ground shouted while desperately trying to resist, his voice trembling, "My Ye Family has a Quasi-Saint Old Ancestor presiding over it!"

A Quasi-Saint could barely be called a mighty being in the Upper Thousand Provinces.

Taking one step further to become a Saint allows one to establish a Holy Land and widely recruit Immortal Disciples.

He thought bringing this up would provide some deterrent, but he seemed to have forgotten something—

This was the Ten Directions Immortal Court.

The two seemingly ordinary guards in front of them, along with the many hidden guards behind them, were all in the twenty-first realm: the Quasi-Emperor Realm.

If it weren't for the inconvenience of an Great Emperor's dharma body moving around.

The one guarding Qin Wangchuan would not be in the twenty-first realm, but the twenty-second realm, the Great Emperor Realm!

It wasn't that the Quasi-Saint was too weak; it was that the Qin Family was too strong!

Qin Wangchuan's expression was calm as he finally spoke: "Leave none alive."

Perhaps it was because his voice was still childish, or perhaps it was simply his nature.

His voice was soft when he said this, but to his enemies, it sounded like the voice of Hell.

"A Quasi-Saint Old Ancestor?" The guard, having received the order, turned to look at the man, a mocking curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

He slowly raised his hand and casually flicked his fingertip—

"Pfft!"

The speaking Ye Family guard didn't even have time to scream; his head instantly exploded, and the rest of his body slumped like mud into a pool of blood.

"A mere Quasi-Saint doesn't even have the opportunity to carry shoes for my Young Lord Your Highness!" another guard sneered. "Even if a Saint or Great Saint came, they would just be a slightly larger ant."

With that, he moved his mind.

The dozen or so Ye Family guards suddenly collapsed as if all the strength had been drained from their bodies.

Their bodies appeared unharmed, but their Divine Souls were instantly annihilated, leaving them no chance of Reincarnation.

If they hadn't been mindful of the Young Lord Your Highness, these people wouldn't have even been left with complete corpses, but would have been directly turned into blood mist.

Those lying prostrate in the market square trembled all over upon seeing this, quickly pressing their heads tightly against the ground and beginning to pray.

Too powerful!

This was not merely a gap in strength, but an absolute crushing by a different dimension!

"Next is..." Qin Wangchuan said, his gaze falling upon the girl still kneeling on the ground.

Although Ye Jianwei could not see, she could hear the crisp sounds of bones breaking and smell the heavy scent of blood.

She bit her lower lip tightly. The phrase "I bought it" was clearly ringing close to her ears, yet she feared she was hallucinating again.

Just like those nights when she was starving and would hear her mother's call.

She hoped it wasn't a hallucination.

Because then she would finally have the money to bury her mother.

Ye Jianwei, who had been clever since childhood, certainly knew that the people before her might not belong to the same world as her.

But she had no choice.

"P-Please buy me!" Almost instinctively, Ye Jianwei abruptly knelt forward, "I only need five hundred Spirit Stones! Five years... no, ten years is fine too! I am very capable!"

Her trembling voice carried the desperation of a last gamble, like a drowning person grasping at the final piece of driftwood.

Qin Wangchuan stood silently in front of the straw mat, the hem of his dark silk robe sweeping past its edge.

He watched this blind girl, who would become the future Heavenly Empress Qin, kneeling on the ground like a beggar.

Half a finger was visible beneath the nearby straw mat—that was the final resting place of her mother.

Just as Ye Jianwei's forehead touched the ground, she suddenly smelled a clear scent of cedar.

It carried no hint of perfume, clean like fresh snow in a mountain stream, yet it inexplicably brought a long-lost warmth to her perpetually cold limbs.

She liked this scent very much.

As she was thinking this, a dull thud suddenly sounded beside her—the sound of bags hitting the ground.

Qin Wangchuan raised a hand, and the two guards behind him understood, tossing down several bags of Spirit Crystals.

"These are Spirit Crystals, several times more Advanced than Spirit Stones. They buy you for a lifetime."

The young man's voice was pleasant, like clear springs and dew.

At the same time, it brought an unreal, dreamlike feeling.

Ye Jianwei's fingertips trembled. When she touched the heavy bags of Spirit Crystals, she snatched her hand back as if she had been burned.

"Y-Young Master..." Her voice was hoarse, and her fingers unconsciously clutched the corner of her clothes. "I... I am not worth this much."

She had heard of Spirit Crystals; they were things even the Ye Family Patriarch coveted.

If it were anyone else, they would likely be ecstatic right now.

But she only felt panic—

Why would a blind girl, unable even to bury her mother's remains, deserve such generous treatment?

Her mud-stained fingertips gently pushed the bags of Spirit Crystals back. She lowered her head, her voice so soft it almost vanished in the wind: "I don't want the Spirit Crystals. I only ask... that Young Master helps me bury my mother. If you give me one meal a day from now on, my life... belongs to you."